


Forming Bonds

by Dorothy Marley (dmarley)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Character of Color, M/M, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 01, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-30
Updated: 2003-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmarley/pseuds/Dorothy%20Marley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teal'c has questions for Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forming Bonds

Teal'c sat awake on the bed in Colonel O'Neill's guest quarters, listening to the strange sounds of the community around him. All was quiet, even the periodic hum of various vehicles passing by now absent. The temperature regulation device was functioning now as well, blowing cool air across the bed, and Teal'c's bare skin. O'Neill had demonstrated the device to him before they retired, explaining how to regulate the atmosphere should he become too hot or cold during the night, but even the increased chill was not unpleasant. It was a comfortable room, the bed wide and pliant, the sheets cool and soft against his skin. He should have rested well here. Instead, he was awake even at this late hour of the night, staring at the wall in front of him and wondering.

After several more minutes, Teal'c finally rose and went out into the hall, remembering only at the last minute to don the robe O'Neill had leant him. Within the house, there was little need for concealment, but O'Neill had impressed upon him the importance of covering his torso should he venture outside even for a moment. The air in the house was clean and fresh, but Teal'c had a sudden desire to breathe the night air for himself, to stand and look up at the stars and attempt to make some order of his thoughts.

The door that led to O'Neill's sleeping room was closed, the faint snores from within barely audible even to Teal'c's sensitive hearing. Nonetheless, Teal'c made every attempt to move silently through the darkened house, navigating his way through the unfamiliar territority until he stood at the back door. It took a few moments for him to remember how to operate the locking mechanism, slightly different from the ones on the doors at the base, but in a very short time he was stepping onto the wood slats of the deck, letting the outer door close silently behind him.

It was a beautiful night. The spread of stars was not as impressive as on Chulak, the galaxial belt reduced to a narrow band across the sky, but Teal'c was becoming accustomed to the more delicate tracery of the stars here closer to the edge of the galaxy. Earlier in the evening O'Neill had named several of them for him, but at this late hour he could no longer identify the patterns O'Neill had shown him, the stars having moved from the positions with which Teal'c was familiar. Like him, he thought with a sudden pang of emotion. Shifted from his world, out of place from everything he found familiar, and safe. For a moment, he indulged himself in the emotion, allowing the flood of regret, and fear, and loneliness to wash over him until he heard his own voice gasp for air, the effort of holding it all in too much, for a moment, for one man. Then he breathed deep of the cool, thin air, and was himself once more.

Behind him, a soft light bloomed from the windows of the kitchen area. Caught in the faint glare, Teal'c turned to see O'Neill silhouetted briefly in the window, then he moved aside and appeared at the back door.

"Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c greeted him as he stepped onto the deck. "I did not mean to wake you."

O'Neill waved his hand, dismissing the apology. "What's the matter?" he asked, his voice rough with sleep. "Something keeping you up?"

"Nothing of importance," Teal'c lied.

"Oh." O'Neill moved to stand next to him, propping his arms on the rail while he leaned over to peer into the yard. "Too quiet?" he guessed. "Or not quiet enough."

At the sound of O'Neill's voice, the canine crawled from under the deck, the tags on his collar jingling as he shook himself. O'Neill stepped from the deck and crouched down on the grass, scratching behind the animal's ears and murmuring nonsensical words of affection. Teal'c kept his distance on the deck, hands behind his back, aware that the creature still did not entirely trust him.

"I do not find the sounds of this dwelling disturbing," Teal'c said at last, finally answering O'Neill's question.

"Bed too soft?" O'Neill suggested. "House too cold? Too hot?" He paused again, still idly rubbing the canine's head. "Something on your mind?"

Teal'c considered for a moment whether to answer. "Yes," he said presently. "I am wondering why you have not yet asked me to your bed."

"Huh?" O'Neill looked up abruptly, his head connecting sharply with the overhang. "Ow!" He backed off and rose more carefully to his feet, rubbing his head as he stared up at Teal'c in the darkness. "Excuse me, but what did you just say?"

"As I understand your customs, you are unmated. You are not sharing the bed of either Samantha Carter or Daniel Jackson. I had assumed, therefore, that that honor would pass to me." His eyes had adjusted enough now for him to make out O'Neill's features clearly, and the expression of stunned shock in the other man's eyes was answer enough. "Clearly my knowledge and my logic are insufficient," he amended.

Finally, O'Neill found his voice. "Uh, yeah," he managed. "A little." He passed his hand over his face, turning to look out over the darkened lawn. "Wow. I don't even know where to start."

"There is no need. Your customs are clearly different. We will speak no more of it."

"Like hell we'll 'speak no more of it,'" O'Neill shot back. "Teal'c, I had no idea."

"Obviously." Teal'c bowed his head stiffly. "As I said, there is no need to speak any further on the matter."

"Teal'c...." With a single bound, O'Neill rejoined him on the deck, reaching for Teal'c's arm even as he turned to go back into the house. "Will you hang on for a second?" He hesitated. "Okay, maybe out here isn't the best place to talk about this. But I think we need to get this settled. Will you come in and sit down and let me explain?"

Teal'c wasn't sure what, exactly, there was to explain. He had erred in his interpretation of Tau'ri customs, and O'Neill had corrected him. There was nothing more that could be said. But clearly O'Neill was upset, and Teal'c wished to do what he could to ease him. So he nodded assent, and allowed O'Neill to lead him into the kitchen.

"You want coffee?" Without waiting for an answer, O'Neill moved to his coffee-making machine and began to fill the reservoir with water.

"It is the middle of the night, O'Neill. Is this an appropriate hour for stimulants?"

"It's five-thirty in the morning. I'm going to be up in half an hour anyway." O'Neill raised the glass carafe. "So, coffee?"

"It would be most welcome. Thank you."

Once the machine had been filled with the appropriate ingredients and switched on, O'Neill sat down at the table with Teal'c. He put his hands on the table, and leveled his dark gaze at him.

"Okay. Daniel warned me about this, so I guess I'm not as surprised as I should be."

Teal'c felt his brows climb up. "Daniel Jackson informed you? I was not aware that he was that familiar with the customs of the Jaffa."

That made O'Neill pause. "Well, he isn't," he admitted. "I mean, he didn't warn me, specifically, he just...warned me. You're from another planet, Teal'c."

"I am aware of that."

"Yeah, well, that's the point, you see. There's bound to be differences, right? Of course, Daniel was talking about eating with the proper salad fork and sitting the right way on the toilet seat." O'Neill caught his gaze, and shook his head. "Never mind." He ran his fingers through his hair, making the short thatch stand on end. "What I'm saying is that Daniel was worried about small stuff. Unimportant stuff. He didn't mention propositioning your commanding officer."

Teal'c frowned, searching his memory. "I am not familiar with that word."

"Proposition? Uh, yeah. It means, uh, to offer something. In this case, sex."

Now Teal'c was puzzled. "I was not offering to engage in sex, O'Neill."

The relief that flooded the other man's face was umistakable. "You weren't? Oh, well." O'Neill's mouth turned up in a smile. "Well, that's a relief. I thought--"

"I was inquiring as to why you have not yet propositioned me. As my superior officer, it is of course your decision which of your warriors you will honor thus."

For a long moment, O'Neill's expression remained frozen, his features still fixed in the half-grin. "Oh, boy," he said with a quiet exhale of breath. He leaned his head forward, scrubbing his palms over his head while he muttered something unintelligible under his breath. "Teal'c," he said presently, his voice slightly muffled as he spoke, apparently, to the table below. "Teal'c, that's not how we do things here."

"Then how do you do them? Is it I who should offer my bed?"

"No!" O'Neill's head snapped up, his eyes glaring. "No, you're missing the point. Neither of us is going to offer anything, okay? Soldiers here...." He trailed off, clearly seeking the proper words. "We don't do that. Sleep, that is. With each other."

Teal'c took a moment to process that information. It did not seem that such a thing could be true. But the Tau'ri's ways were strange. A number of questions jostled for attention in his brain, but he settled for a single word. "Why?"

"Why?" O'Neill stared at him, as if Teal'c had asked why the sun rose. "Well, uh, there's a lot of reasons," he said. "Good reasons."

"I would be interested to hear them."

"Yeah, I bet." O'Neill ran his hands over his head again, then pushed himself to his feet as the last of the water gurgled into the coffee carafe. "Coffee?" he offered again, and poured two cups without waiting for an answer. He carried Teal'c's cup to him, and sat down once more. A few sips of the hot liquid seemed to calm him, and he set his mug down and faced Teal'c over the table once more.

"Okay. Obviously I have no idea how things work on Chulak, but here there's a kind of basic belief that it's a bad idea for an officer to become involved with anyone in his--or her--command. It clouds your judgement, makes it harder to make good decisions."

Teal'c felt his brow furrow. "In what way?"

O'Neill looked uncomfortable. "You're a soldier, Teal'c. You know as well as I do that sometimes giving an order will cost a man his life. If an officer is, well, too attached, then it makes it harder to think objectively, to think about the mission instead of about the person."

"And it is easier to order a stranger to his death?"

That made O'Neill hesitate. "That's a little more blunt than I'd put it, but yeah, that's supposed to be the idea."

"Yet you are close friends with many of those you serve with. You and Daniel Jackson are extremely close, and you seemed to share a deep bond with Major Kawalsky."

At the sound of Kawalsky's name, O'Neill's face closed, the features hardening into a still mask. "Yeah," he said presently, his voice quiet, and rough. "Yeah, that's kind of my point."

"Among the Jaffa, it is believed that a warrior follows his superiors from loyalty, and honor, and duty. But it is also believed that a warrior can follow from love."

"Yeah, well, there's love and then there's...love. And love is not a big thing with the Air Force, let me tell you."

"Then warriors are not encouraged to form such bonds with one another?"

"Uh, that'd be a big no, Teal'c. I would even go so far as to say that forming...bonds is pretty much frowned upon. You can get cashiered for it, in fact."

"I do not understand. You make no secret of your affection for Daniel Jackson, and yet you--" Teal'c was forced to leave the sentence unfinished as O'Neill choked on the mouthful of coffee he had just taken, his face turning red as he finally coughed the last of the liquid from his lungs.

"Excuse me?" he finally gasped.

"It is clear to me, as it must be clear to others, that you love Daniel Jackson," Teal'c explained. "And yet you have not been--" He groped for the word O'Neill had used. "Cashiered."

"Where the hell did you hear that?"

"I did not hear it. I observed it. You have demonstrated it many times."

"I have?"

"Yes."

"When?" O'Neill demanded.

"You do it frequently. You inquire after his health and well-being, you express great concern when he is ill or injured, you often touch him affectionately--"

"Yeah, okay, that's enough." O'Neill shook his head. "So he's a good friend. Okay, so he's my best friend. But that's different."

"In what way?"

"Well, I'm not sleeping with him, for one."

"And that is a significant difference."

"Yes!" O'Neill said emphatically, as if relieved that they'd finally come to that point.

"And yet your affection for him is clear. In what way would your feelings about Daniel Jackson alter if you engaged in sex?"

The expression on O'Neill's face was very strange, an almost unreadable combination of horror, chagrin, fear, and, although Teal'c was not yet adept at deciphering the human's expressions, a fair measure of what seemed to be guilt. "Well, uh...hmm," he began, then his chin lifted as a loud, discordant sound began emanating from the back of the house. "Saved by the bell," he breathed, as he rose to his feet. "We'll talk about this later, okay?" O'Neill called over his shoulder as he hurried out of the kitchen to turn off the alarm. "Much later," he added, so quietly that even Teal'c's keen ears barely caught the words. Teal'c picked up his own coffee and took his first taste of the bitter liquid, wondering if he would ever understand the ways of his new home.

**Author's Note:**

> I sat on this fragment for almost three years, hoping it would mysteriously gestate and become the full story I'd planned (Hey, it works with coat hangers and dust bunnies). Maybe the rest of the story will be written, but I finally realized that this little bit is actually fairly complete in and of itself and decided to post it.


End file.
